St Cyril of Alexandria Commentary on John (Third Part)

St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print

This Part: 128 Pages

Page 78

Let not then the haughty Pharisee brag of his own daring deeds, nor puffed up with exceeding ill-counsel say, If Christ were by Nature God, how came He not to be without my meshes? how escaped He not my hands? for he will hear in reply from those who love Him, Not thy meshes, O sir, prevailed, for it were nought hard for God supreme over all to crush thy snare, and pass forth of the net of thy impiety: but the Suffering was the salvation of the world, the Passion the undoing of death, the Mighty Cross the overthrow of sin and corruption. This He knowing as God, submitted Himself to thy unholy daring. For what, tell me, was the hindrance to thy enfolding Him then especially when thou wert gnashing thy teeth at Him, as He was teaching by the very treasury? and if it was the work of thy might to overcome Christ, why didst thou not make Him a prisoner then? But thou stoodst in anger unmitigated to bloodshed all revealed, yet doing nought of the things thou wouldest. For not yet did He will to suffer, Who was persuaded by thy mad folly, as by bits which may not be snapped. These things may one with reason opposing to the vain talk of the Jews, shame them even against their will, into not bragging of what they least ought. And one may well admire the holy Evangelist reasonably shewing, and clearly saying that the Saviour was teaching these things in the temple by the Treasury and no man laid hands on Him: for he was witnessing so to speak to Christ's own words, which He said to the Jews when they were at hand to take Him, As against' a robber are ye come out with swords and staves for to take Me? daily did I sit teaching in the temple and ye laid no hold on Me. And one would not (I suppose) say, if one thought rationally, that He was blaming the Jews, that they had not brought on His Passion untimely, nor yet that letting slip the right time, they were advancing too slowly to shed blood: but rather He is convicting them, as unwisely supposing that they should have prevailed even against His will, and could have seized by force Him who may not suffer except He will. For I was sitting teaching in the temple and ye laid no hold on Me, for then I willed it not, nor would ye now avail to do this, except I willingly subjected Myself to your hands. Hence one may on all sides see, that no work was it of Jewish might to put our Lord to death; but to their unholy daring may one attribute the attempt, to our Saviour Christ the will to suffer for all, that He might free all and, having bought them with His own Blood, present them to God the Father. For God, as Paul saith, was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, and in all forgiveness restoring that which had fallen away from friendship with Him, unto what it was in the beginning.

Previous Page / First / Next Page of St Cyril - John Commentary

St Cyril of Alexandria Home Page / Works ||| More Church Fathers

Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons

Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/john-commentary-3.asp?pg=78